Last week legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, 68, was detained by police after a resident called to report a man wandering through a New Jersey neighborhood, “looking at houses.”
The Associated Press issued a lighthearted report — the responding officer, in her 20s, did not recognize Dylan or his name. A second twenty-something officer, responding to “assist” the first, also didn’t know who Dylan was. (Which is not surprising, or hilarious, or the point.)
The officers asked Dylan his name, what he was doing, and to see his identification, which he didn’t have on him. Dylan told the officers he was just walking around looking at houses to pass time before that night’s show. (A July 23 concert with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp.)
The officers asked Dylan to accompany them back to the Ocean Place Resort and Spa, where the performers were staying. There, tour staff vouched for Dylan. The officers thanked Dylan for his “cooperation.” A Dylan publicist did not return calls seeking comment.
We can only hope Dylan is writing a protest song.
How many roads must a man walk down before you call the police on him?
In our post 9/11 world, apparently we need another summit of some kind. Unless the last Homeland Security bill had provisions we’re unaware of, it still remains legal in the United States to wander down any public street. It is legal to not carry identification. And it is legal to answer, or not answer, officers’ questions. Unless police have a reasonable suspicion you have committed a crime, they cannot arrest you. Even if your attitude is less than “cooperative.”
(Bloggers say, look, Dylan cooperated, and it worked out fine, unlike the incident involving Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Is that really the take-away lesson? It bothers no one Dylan was stopped in the first place? Sigh. Perhaps Gates responded as he did when police demanded identification, after he answered the door to his own home, because Americans who have not committed crimes are rarely, if ever, confronted by police at their front doors, demanding proof that you are who you say you are, that this house is really yours. Has that happened to you? Anyone you know?)
As Americans, we are, in theory, free to walk our streets without being interrogated. Residents are free to call police when they see someone they view as “suspicious.” But when police respond, and see a man simply walking on a sidewalk at 5 p.m., minding his own business, breaking no laws, it’s time for the officers to just move along.
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